Well. Selective attention. Filter bubbles. Adaptive ignorance.Search images. All of these phrases are relevant to viewing life with eyes wide open. Really seeing what you see. Because there is seeing … and … well … there is seeing. With so many distractions <objects & views & sensory things> and people <gestures & emotions & behavior>, do we really see them? And, frankly, can we see them all?

Too often we don’t.

In our rush to get from point a to point b, getting kids out the door for whatever they need to get out the door for and, well, you fill in the excuse for how we look at a lot of shit going on in our lives, the unfortunate truth is that we rarely ever see what is going on. And we certainly do not see everything we could, and possibly should, see.

Once again. Around us as well as in the people in front of us.

Yeah … yeah … yeah. We pay lip service to this. We say we care and pay attention and are observant, but we aren’t. To be fair. It isn’t easy to really see what’s going on around you with everything else you are thinking about and focusing on. And, no, this isn’t about distractions or technology or any of that crap. This is simply about the fact that Life can be a natural blur and the fact that we, as people, in general, suck at seeing what it is really going on around us — the world as well as the actual individual we may be interacting with.

In fact. We have science on our side as an excuse <for our suckedness on this issue>.

===

“Attention is an intentional, unapologetic discriminator. It asks what is relevant right now, and gears us up to notice only that.”

cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz

===

This thought really does impact how we spend our lives because it means we get geared up to notice only that which is relevant to us. And, frankly, we kind of suck at that too <discerning what is most relevant to us>. We tend to float past each other, and past life itself, cut off from the world by not only smartphones but a belief that what is going on around us is not the most relevant thing.

There is seeing and … well … seeing and there is a vast difference between the two. Frederick Franck in “Zen Seeing/Zen Drawing” argues:

“The glaring contrast between seeing and looking-at the world around us is immense; it is fateful. Everything in our society seems to conspire against our inborn human gift of seeing. We have become addicted to merely looking-at things and beings. The more we regress from seeing to looking at the world — through the ever-more-perfected machinery of viewfinders, TV tubes, VCRs, microscopes, spectroscopes — the less we see. The less we see, the more numbed we become to the joy and the pain of being alive, and the further estranged we become from ourselves and all others.

Well. That is a discouraging thought. He is basically suggesting that once we get on the slippery slope of ‘not seeing’ we very quickly enter, and stay, in this miserable abyss of ‘non-observation’.

He may be right. But I would rather believe he is not. Seeing, really seeing, is a discriminating decision made by you. Not the world around you. You.

I say this because ‘seeing’ is simply about openness: open eyes, open mind, open heart … open to unapologetic attention.

This is about not really looking for something in particular just being ready and receptive to whatever happens around you and in front of you. And by not seeking anything in particular <because that inhibits true seeing> you end up, as someone wrote somewhere ‘… by your own eyes you will see, and there will be a conclusion.’

In other words … you don’t see based on your own ideas, but rather you see based on what you actually see.

Hey.

I am not suggesting this is easy. I am simply suggesting that you can do it if you elect to.

If it helps, we have evolution to blame on why I can say what I am saying to you:

…. evolution’s problem-solving left us modern humans with two kinds of attention: vigilance, which allows us to have a quick and life-saving fight-or-flight response to an immediate threat, be it a leaping lion or a deranged boss, and selective attention, which unconsciously curates the few stimuli to attend to amidst the flurry bombarding us, enabling us to block out everything except what we’re interested in ingesting. (Selective attention, of course, can mutate to dangerous degrees, producing such cultural atrocities as the filter bubble.)

Ah. The ‘filter bubble.’

the filter bubble

… by definition, it’s populated by the things that most compel you to click. But it’s also a real problem: the set of things we’re likely to click on (sex, gossip, things that are highly personally relevant) isn’t the same as the set of things we need to know.

Eli Pariser

Evolution and Life experience has created this filter bubble for each of us. And, by the way, each of our filter bubbles are different <because our Life experiences have been different in creating it>. But. This filter bubble idea also suggests that you can manage, if not actually change your filter bubble.

Yup. You can change the way you see things.

==

“To learn to see- to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

==

I love that one thought … ‘allow things to come to it.’ Allow what you see to come to your eye … and ultinalety your mind.

Seeing is in the mind … not in the eyes. Mentally we need to stop focusing on a specific destination but rather watch during the journey.

===

“You reminded me of another traveler I knew who always wanted to get there, wherever there happened to be, and as a result missed what was all around him at the time.”

Sir Richard Burton author and traveler

===

Now. More research. Just to make everyone feel better … beyond evolution … there is a real reason we do this. It is called ‘adaptive ignorance.’

This is no excuse and the truth is ‘adaptive ignorance’ gets driven by an out of whack barometer of what is important to the individual, but at least there is a psychological reason:

This adaptive ignorance, she argues, is there for a reason — we celebrate it as “concentration” and welcome its way of easing our cognitive overload by allowing us to conserve our precious mental resources only for the stimuli of immediate and vital importance, and to dismiss or entirely miss all else. (“Attention is an intentional, unapologetic discriminator,” Horowitz tells us. “It asks what is relevant right now, and gears us up to notice only that.”) But while this might make us more efficient in our goal-oriented day-to-day, it also makes us inhabit a largely unlived — and unremembered — life, day in and day out.

Not only does Life make seeing difficult … our minds do. Our minds adapt more and more <which ultimately constrains seeing> by a couple of things:

– productivity <just getting shit done or out of the way or solved>

– the ways we learn to see the world.

All this adaptation <or I imagine we can call it ‘coping’> creates something researchers call ‘search images.’ These are things all of us employ when we need to narrow our attention in a goal-oriented task. Unfortunately, this is only helpful or even possible if we know what to look for. And that, my friends, is ultimately the point about seeing … and really seeing.

===

“… more is missed by not looking than not knowing.”

Thomas McCrae

===

We don’t see because we don’t look.

What a shame.

Because by not looking, really looking, we miss seeing some really valuable <important> things. In the end. I’ve provided a whole bunch of excuses for why we don’t really see things — real researched psychological reasons to hold on to if you want. But I would suggest now that you know the psychological reasons you are now aware enough to, well, actually see what you should see, not what you want to see.

“Why do we always say life is short when it’s the longest thing we’ll ever experience?”

–

<unknown>

======

“I love that word.

Forever.

I love that forever doesn’t exist, but we have a word for it anyway, and use it all the time.

It’s beautiful and doomed. “

—

Viv Albertine

============

Time.

Poetically speaking … Time is always hungry for many of the things we dearly want to endure.

Time is beautiful and doomed.

Oh.

And time typically equals anxiety. Anxiety over time wasted and even on time not wasted <too short>.

Why?

We feel a natural anxiety over uncertainty. Anxiety that things beyond our control, <metaphorically> cormorants flying by, will takes things away from us we either haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy, or maybe worse, the things we want to hold on to <the things we did enjoy>.

I always find it fascinating that we invest so much of Time on time itself. I also find it fascinating how Time is usually depicted.

For such a dastardly character, this Time guy, time itself is typically fairly unremarkable when depicted in literature. Bald and often with beard … he could be taken for almost any senior citizen. And he, yes … always a he, is seen most likely with these things :

–The scythe: represents the destructive effects of transience

– The hourglass: is the visual metaphor of time’s passage

– The wings: suggest our psychological sense of time’s rapidity

It makes you wonder: when did we decide to make Time so unremarkable or even ‘despicable?’

Well. It was different in the good ole days. Time wasn’t quite so despicable in the past.

In fact. Time was associated not with finiteness, but rather infiniteness.

In the way way back machine you would be most likely to see Time as “the Divine principle of eternal and inexhaustible creativeness.”

<most likely symbolized by the ouroboros, a snake swallowing its tail>

Ah.

Time as divine. What a nice thought. I know we all value our time <despite the fact we more often waste it than maximize it>, but thinking of it as eternal & inexhaustible is something we do not read about often today.
And while today you read article after article about the finiteness of our available time .we are more likely to view this ‘inexhaustible creativeness’ as oddly, well, elastic — especially elastic when viewed thru a good – bad lens.

—

“Bad things come in a hurry, good things come in time.”

William Chapman

—

But, to me, even discussing time is elastic, or inelastic, seem kind of wacky.

Time, in and of itself, is actually nothing.

It is simply a void to be filled.

Therefore, philosophically or conceptually, time isn’t really time.

It is an experience or feeling or whatever falls into that void.

It is space defined by degrees of energy, effort, attention and experience.

Somebody smarter than I has described Time falling into two separate categories in our heads:

‘measured time’

what appears on a clock or watch

‘experienced time’

time speeds up or slows down depending on the experience

Time always seems to inevitably be attached to something intangible when building value … well … actually … the equation is:

And it becomes even more difficult to measure because we put such a high value on individual freedom and autonomy and self-determination with regard to doing whatever we want whenever we want in whatever way we choose … and yet time is most efficiently spent when controlled.

——-

“So much universe, and so little time.”

Terry Pratchett

———–

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.”

=

Mark Strand

—-

Technology has certainly affected how we view time and its elasticity <or inelasticity>. Changes in technology have blurred many of what we used to think of as some reassuring Time boundaries.

The biggest blurred boundary? … where does work stop and life begin? In and of itself this wouldn’t really matter to us. we would adapt and it wouldn’t be an oft discussed social issue.

However. Other factors are impacting us at exactly the same time. Many of the issues facing us today in the world, and in our lives, appear to have no clear right or wrong answers. That anxiety or additional stress upon our lives, which creates some ‘lack of comfort in boundaries’ translates into us seeking boundaries elsewhere. Time is one of those mostly because, rationally, we believe it is within our purview to actually control it <albeit we keep getting tugged by external influences which make us feel less control>.

Time seems despicable because it is so often caught in the wretched hollow of the in between of individuals and societies each trying to organize seeming chaos with some boundaries.

“No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention.

Well, get used to that feeling. That’s how your whole life will feel some day.

This is all practice. “

—

Chuck Palahniuk

====

“It’s never as good as you want it to be; It’s never as bad as it seems.”

—

William Chapman

====

Well. Chuck Palahniuk writes some really deep shit. Stuff that really makes you think. That said, I have to admit, when I read the opening quote a lot of things about living Life, in business and personal, made a helluva lot more sense to me.

Maybe it’s just me, but, it seems like most of Life is tainted by sense of constantly missing ‘something’ … as in something maybe better than where we are and what we are doing and feeling or in what we have done. It isn’t always this huge disappointment. It’s just like a little nagging sliver in the palm of your hand.

All the while this sense is interposed with glimpses of … well … what is actually better. We, being we humans, naturally don’t accept the sense we missed something. Therefore we begin becoming more & more careful with how we invest our time and more careful about what we do <or don’t do>. Basically, we start treating our lives carefully assuming that if we do so, we will have less sense of something missing and more glimpses of ‘the better we feel like we are missing sometimes.’

Boy.

Are we wrong.

Boy.

We sure are investing a shitload of energy chasing something I believe Life simply dangles in front of us to tease us with thoughts of ‘what could be.’

It is quite possible we should learn to accept the nagging sense of missing something as … well … good. Good as in it makes us a little more alert for ‘things.’ Maybe it just makes us pay attention a little more.

Maybe we should accept the feeling isn’t lostness nor the thought that maybe we were not on the right path in Life.

Maybe we should just accept it as a characteristic of a good life.

Anyway. All of this leads me to a quote, and a thought, I vehemently disagree with:

======

……. me reading this quote ……

“People who succeed tend to find one goal in the distant future and then chase it through thick and thin. People who flit from one interest to another are much, much less likely to excel at any of them. School asks students to be good at a range of subjects, but life asks people to find one passion that they will follow forever. “

David Brooks

<The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources Of Love, Character, And Achievement>

=======

That is just bullshit.

Life does not ask people to find one passion that they will follow forever. That’s like saying that I love ice cream, but I am only going to eat chocolate ice cream for the rest of my life because it is my favorite flavor.

What a potentially boring life.

What a potentially ‘missed opportunity’ life.

The whole ‘passion’ discussion makes my head hurt so badly I start rubbing my temples so hard that then the sides of my head hurt too.

Let’s be clear. It is not passion <although glimpses of passion is always fun>. Life asks you to do the best, be the best and pursue what you believes makes you the best of what you could be … that’s it.

That’s what you follow forever.

Is success achieving that ‘one goal in the distant future?’ Maybe for some. But ‘people who succeed tend to find one goal and chase it’ is bullshit. What happens if I suck at picking that one goal or maybe my sense of direction sucks as I ‘go thru think & thin’ getting to the horizon <only to find I am standing in nowhere land>?

Look.

I am all for people pursuing goals.

I am all for people being passionate.

I am all for pursuing thru thick & thin <assuming what you are pursuing is ‘real’ and not some fantasyland>.

But I am not all for putting the blinders on, the bit between the teeth and then run like hell toward some goal on the horizon.I do believe you should be inspired in your actions … but inspired is very different than passion.

Passion. I have a passion … it is for something.

Inspired. I can be inspired by many somethings and moments and experiences and … well … you get it.

Here is a Life truth. The people who tend to succeed are inspired … by one thing or by many things … doesn’t matter. They are just inspired people.

===

“All the effort in the world won’t matter if you’re not inspired.”

Chuck Palahniuk

===

All that said. Let me circle back to the beginning. No matter how careful you are, no matter how much and how hard you pursue something … you will still have a sense of having missed something. Everyone has an undercurrent sense, a feeling, of missing something.

Look. We all pursue one thing — happiness. We may couch it in some ‘idea I have’ or ‘money’ or “purpose” or, well, anything else life has to offer, but we all want, and therefore seek, happiness. I would suggest what Chuck suggested we think about is not really acceptance of ‘lesser than what we want’ but rather accept the balance Life offers us.

The balance in that we will almost naturally have some sense of ‘something better’ no matter how careful we are in managing our lives or the pursuit of some goal.

The balance of actually getting a glimpse of that ‘something’ and not having rushed thru some important moment versus the missing feeling.

Well. Having said all that.

When I read the opening quote I had a better understanding of why so many people are unhappy far too often.

Because if we DON’T accept the sense of missing something as part of living a full Life … well … that means you will spend your entire life chasing that sense <to suffocate it in some way>. If you do that, well, that pursuit will inevitably suffocate your Life <and that is an unhappy Life>. Ponder. Maybe I am missing something. And maybe I am not.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

=================

Contradictions. My favorite topic (certainly in business). Now. This is a tricky conversation in business because most business people like one-dimensional thinking & ideas. Yeah. That sounds harsh but at its core is the argument of “stand for one thing” combined with “simple is success”. Both of which ignore the fact most people find contradictions interesting (therefore cognitively retain the imprint better) and simple doesn’t necessarily mean ‘one thing’ but rather ‘understandable.’ I would also argue contradictions, or multidiemensional is more relatable. My main example of this is in discussing Brand Personality where the whole idea of ‘one thing’ is absurd.

Regardless. I personally love the idea of ‘owning a contradiction’ because it is a descriptive phrase that invokes people to hold two opposing concepts concurrently.

And more importantly? It is a smart idea. And I don’t care who you are, you like smart ideas <everyone does>.

Everyone likes ideas that make you think. A contradiction, or an idea capturing a contradiction, is an idea that makes you think.

Patient quickness.

Make haste slowly.

Big and fast.

Small but powerful.

Less is more.

That kind of stuff. Literally, I imagine we are simply discussing oxymorons.

But. I will get back to that (because I am curious and looked up all that stuff). Owning a Contradiction is excellent for when you are talking about brand positioning and company’s value propositions and what people think about an organization (or product or service).

A contradiction offers something that may seem counter intuitive and make people cock their heads a little bit and think “how do they do that?”.

From an organization value proposition standpoint (what is it we do best – with a skew toward functional) owning a contradiction is kind of the holy grail.

In particular you love to zero in on some aspect of more for less.

(Think of that as the holy grail value proposition sweet spot)

What do I mean?

That’s like …

More happiness-satisfaction less worry.

Get more Services at less cost.

More nutrition in least (smallest) portion.

Do more with less (plus/minus relationship).

Do most with least amount of money/budget.

Large global resources attention to small details.

“who say you can’t be big and nimble?”

Stuff like that.

If you can build an organizational culture and innovations and attitudinal structure with something like that at the core you are golden. Now and for the future.

Anyway. Whenever I bring up owning a contradiction, at first blush, everyone loves the idea. The challenge is when people want to “understand it.”

So. Inevitably you get the smart(ass) question … ‘are you talking about an oxymoron or a paradox’?

(yikes. Here is where I need to search dictionaries for help)

Oxymoron or Paradox. Here are the two definitions.

An oxymoron as “a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in ‘cruel kindness’ or ‘to make haste slowly’.”

(c’mon … who uses ‘locution’ in a sentence … jerks)

A paradox is defined as “a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth”.

Uh oh. That didn’t help me. Is one a figure of a speech and one a sentence? Geez. ‘Self contradictory but in reality expresses a possible truth.’

Now. That sounds good. Unfortunately if I research oxymoron I get more of what I am talking about with owning a contradiction despite the fact the explanation for a paradox seems … well … righter.

The Oxymoron is a figure of speech that deliberately uses two contradictory ideas. This contradiction creates a paradoxical image (okay. They just used oxymoron and paradox together ???) in the reader or listener’s mind that generates a new concept or meaning for the whole.

Some typical oxymorons are:

– a living death

– sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind

– a deafening silence

– bitter sweet

– The Sounds of Silence (song title)

– make haste slowly

– conspicuous by his absence

Ok. It gets worse (trying to understand what it is supposed to be) when you look at these.

The following seem more like paradoxes to me, but they all are from a book called “Oxymoronica” by Dr. Mardy Grothe.

—

I can resist everything but temptation.

Oscar Wilde

=

Don’t be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.

Billy Wilder

=

Just be truthful – If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

Barbara Stanwyck

=

Please all, and you will please none.

Aesop – 6th century BC

=

Nothing is permanent, except change.

Heraclitus – 4th century BC

=

Okay. Regardless. Owning a contradiction (to me) is not only smart but it articulates something in a way that it actually becomes a figure of Speech (which also has a literal definition by the way)

Uh oh. Another definition. Figure of speech? A figure is worth a thousand words (A picture is worth a thousand words)

—

Figurative language:

One meaning of “figure” is drawing” or “image” or “picture”. Figurative language creates figures (pictures) in the mind of the reader or listener. These pictures help convey the meaning faster and more vividly than words alone.

We use figures of speech in “figurative language” to add color and interest, and to awaken the imagination. Figurative language is everywhere, from classical works like Shakespeare or the Bible, to everyday speech, pop music and television commercials. It makes the reader or listener use their imagination and understand much more than the plain words.

Anyway. I come back to “expresses a possible truth.” Owning a contradiction (when you aren’t making it up and it is something of value) is figurative, a paradox and most importantly is communicating the possibility of a truth.

Something meaningful but contradictory all to the benefit of whoever you are communicating to.

In a way it is quite possible I like contradictions because they aggressively and interestingly attack people’s ignorance. They make you think of things that may not seem possible, but become an interesting ‘truth’ (and we learn something). To me that is the cognitive power of a contradiction.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Confucius – 6th century BC

I will admit. Contradictions are personal to me. Lunch bucket intellectual is my contradiction. Bring a blue collar work ethic day in and day out but relentless intellectual curiosity to seek insights and ‘truth.’ I guess I am also a generalist specialist.

All that said. Bottom line? Any time you can own a contradiction you are more interesting ... as a product, as a business or even as a person.

For the latter, well, just see the gobs of information and quotes online with regard to “if you aren’t moving forward you are standing still” … “don’t look back or you’ll miss what is in front of you” … “don’t look back you are not going that way” or some fortune cookie wisdom like that <as if no one knows that movement, and progress, is good>. I call this the ‘forward progress theory’ business <I have noted elsewhere Life, like chess, is about facing the entire board and obstacles & opportunities which lie all around you, not just in front of you, & you can move in a variety of directions with progress in mind>.

That said.

With regard to progress, the bravest thing you can do is to not look back. Why do I say ‘brave’? We make it really hard to not look back. Really hard. Day in and day out everything around you pounds on you for ‘what did you learn’ and how are you applying it and ‘if you don’t know learnings from the past how can you be sure that is the right thing to do?” <crap like that>.

Okay. Semi useful thinking crap like that. But what it really means is that anyone truly desiring to move forward, intent on progress, keeps getting dragged back time and again to the past. What, or who, is the main culprit of this almost unhealthy relationship with the past?

“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to make the same mistakes.”

Christalmighty.“Doomed.”

No wonder people are afraid of some risk or hesitate to move forward keep looking backwards. Doom is never a particularly desirable objective if you care about your career <or anything for that matter>.

The ‘doomed’ aspect <which older business people toss around like confetti in meetings> means we are almost demanded to not only invest energy in the past but, in some cases, encouraged to hold on to past learning with ragged claws. That said … I will go back to the bravery aspect because I could argue the truest bravery, in this sense, resides in two places:

Not looking back once you have decided to move forward.

Not looking back when you purposefully stand still.

Yeah.

First.Move.There are actually times to just go. Go and do. I do not mean ‘go’ as solely leaning on instincts <I call this ‘decision faking by intuition‘>, because research tends to show instincts are less important than experience, but lean on your experience to guide you through the context of your progress. The truth is that the past cannot show you all the shit you need to know as you move forward. It only shows aspects of shit you should be aware of. And, worse, the past has nasty habit of not encouraging you to reflect on the context of all the aspects just the aspects themselves. Therefore history is truly only important in parts and not the whole.

This means you have to grab the scraps of what you need from the past and create a new whole in moving forward. That is where bravery steps up to the plate. More often than not you are creating a new whole … a slightly different version of what was. Yeah. That is different than the past <it s actually something new>. Yeah. Everyone is actually a creator, a discoverer albeit we don’t like to think about that. While this point is a generalization … if you know your shit … once you have decided to go … to move forward … don’t look back. Bravely face the new world ahead.

Yeah.

Second.Stand still. There are actually times to stop. Stand still. Even amidst activity. Even amidst a crowd which seems like it is moving forward <albeit sometimes all you see is the movement>.

Stillness, strategic stillness, is possibly one of the scariest things anyone can ever do. When everyone and everything is moving you feel like you are ding something wrong in standing still. And, yet, by purposefully doing so you may be adding to the progress rather than taking away from it.

Here is what I know about purposefully standing still.

You have to accept the fact you are offering the type of energy that no matter where you are and no matter that you are still & not moving you are actually adding value to the space and time and progress to that which is around you. I can promise you that this takes a version of bravery.

Anyway.

The entire ‘Forward progress Theory’ is difficult. Difficult in the mind <attitudes> and even in practice <behavior>. I could argue that it is so difficult because our natural instinct is to try and use the past to define what the future will look like. That is slightly crazy when you think about it. While the arc of time suggests the future will most likely replicate the past, well, that is the arc and not the details. It’s kind of like discussing strategy versus tactics. The strategy may remain the same or similar, but the tactics will vary in the context of time & situation.

Progress does take some bravery, some courage. Mostly because the future will always contain something you have never seen before or faced before. In other words … it will not be the same as it was.

I don’t think I am particularly brave but I certainly don’t look back once I decide to go … and I have no qualms with standing still amidst movement. I tend to believe it is not bravery but rather experience.

Ah. Experience. Maybe you need to be brave to gain useful experience?

Ok.

That’s another post for another day ……..

===================

“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, ‘So what’.

Let’s talk about Life: some things happen because Life is an indifferent purposeless, neither good nor evil, player in your Life.

Let’s talk about Life: It is a game and Life not only plays an active role but it is clearly an opponent.

Which leads me to Life as a chess game, or, maybe better said, he voyage of the soul is often like a game of chess in which you:

Move … counter move.

Rarely move in a straight line.

You dictate some moves.

You react to some moves.

Throughout we gain knowledge forward, backward, diagonally and even by moving sideways.

I note that thought because so often people discuss ‘moving forward.’

“Keep going” <with an implication that is always ‘ahead’>.

And yet Life, like chess, is about facing the entire board and obstacles & opportunities which lie all around you — not just in front of you.

Well.

In chess … “ahead” come in a variety of directions and moves.

Regardless. The chess metaphor suggests Life is lived by unlocking different paths in which you make counter moves and moves against Life. It also suggests your plan is ultimately defined, at least in some part, by the moves made against you. It also suggests our fate is inevitably made of the sum total of all choices already made <which means fate is neither fickle nor some amorphous concept but … uh oh … rather derived by our choices>.

I thought about this thought after reading the following words in a book:

——-

“In exile men are captured and enslaved while in their homeland they can be free men and beneath their own roofs may reign supreme.

Yet in what does human freedom consist?

The voyage of the soul is like a game of chess.

The object of the game is to entrap the opponent’s king by limiting progressively the opponent’s freedom to move his pieces about the board.

At the beginning of the game each player enjoyed an infinite number of choices.

But with each freely chosen move each player decreased by one an option of his own and perhaps as many as several options for his opponent.

There is a rapid diminishing of free choice for both sides so that as the end of the game nears the players realize their fates has been made by the sum total of those choices already made.

So it is for all men.

Only by foreseeing the ultimate consequence of all decisions and by foretelling the decisions of Life <your opponent in this case> can a man choose wisely and freely.

Yet freedom adheres only to the individual act itself and not to one’s life as a whole.

That being said … this suggests that each person is a lawgiver unto himself, his own magistrate and … ultimately … his own executioner.

——–

Whew. So. This means we are lawyer, magistrate … and executioner of our own Life?

<insert “yikes” here>

Also. And while the chess pieces are black & white, how about the thought that Life is neither black nor white? Maybe it is simply indifferent to anything but the move or counter move you make. And if ignorance is exile … and knowledge is your home … your home is simply the square your piece currently resides on.

At the moment.

Only to move on again and again.

Uhm. That is some deep shit.

Here is what I like. Life is neither preordained nor is it assured that Life is a better chess player than you <albeit it has significantly more practice>.

Life is about moves and counter moves. And all the moves occur with multiple pieces on the board. And you can move in any direction … even pausing on occasion. I say that last thought because I believe we far too often see ourselves moving in some line … straight, diagonal, jagged or smooth. Maybe instead we are a number of pieces each of which are being moved against Life.

You can purposefully sacrifice one piece to attain your objective.

You can lose a piece <even one you really didn’t want to lose> through a wrong move.

You can win a piece because Life wasn’t paying as close attention as it should.

But what I like most is that choices become more finite over time. I like that dose of reality. A dose in a world where so many positive psychology gurus espouse ‘ infinite choices‘ and ‘you can do whatever you want’ trite crap. This is a fairly simple concept <with a shit load of complex repercussions>.

Life is a game of chess. As time goes by you win pieces and lose pieces and progress across and around the board. But you will inevitably have less pieces and a diminishing number of free choices.

It takes some hard choices and some smart choices to play the game of Life.

Here is what I do know for sure about every move you make:

—–

“Nothing that we do, is done in vain.

I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.”

Charles Dickens

——

Life is the voyage of the soul. Each move and counter move you make is one you choose seeking for a triumph … of the soul.

We may lose sight of that on occasion but as the once infinite choices become diminished and they become more clearly finite … you could be the village idiot … but you will recognize that the remaining choices become more and more about the soul.

Finiteness, or an inevitable ‘end’, has an amazing tendency to provide some clarity on what is important.

I think the earlier you recognize, this the better you play the Life game of choices.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

–

William Blake

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Ok. Far too often we speak of progress as “forward.” This implies all progress lies in one, and only one, direction, and, it is a linear concept & function. This is wrong. Unequivocally, absolutely, wrong.

Well. I know I have fallen in this trap myself on occasion. I have certainly suggested that Life is often a ragged diagonal, but more often than not I discuss progress as forward.

It is not true. Forward ain’t the only direction for progress.

Please note that I am not suggesting movement represents actual progress just that progress can appear in any direction.

Well, okay, to be fair, I imagine I am also suggesting movement is good. It may not represent actual progress, but it does represent two things:

<1> you are less likely to be run over by someone who is moving … and you are not

<2> restlessness most typically is indicative of curiosity, exploring, discovery and learning.

So I am suggesting movement involves at least some sort of proactive restlessness <although I imagine fear driven restlessness is also some version of progress itself>. This movement means you have increased the likelihood to live for another day or another moment combined with the fact that the experience you gain while moving increases the likelihood you will be ‘better’ in some way the next day or moment.

Now. If you believe progress can be defined in any direction, not just forward, it has some pretty positive outputs:

– multitude of possibility: instead of possibilities residing somewhere in front of you now you can explore possibilities in any direction. This suggests progress is infinite <not possibilities>.

– time is less constrained: when you only have one direction you can go it can become very constraining as time looks extremely finite because it appears to only have value when moving in one direction <all other paths and dimensions have no value because no ‘progress’ is attached to it>. In other words, if progress can occur in any direction, your present gets some elbow room.

==

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.”

Evelyn Waugh

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As I said earlier, I have been wrong on this topic in the past. I have said ‘if you are not moving forward you are moving backwards <metaphorically>”.

I was wrong.

If you remain committed to restless movement and possibly some strategic side to side steps, maybe even thoughtful steps back, heck, even standing still on occasion; it can all be part of progress.

Lastly. I purposefully used the word ‘committed.’ Movement in Life &Business takes commitment.

It may sound odd, or counter intuitive, but constantly fighting the battle between progress and stagnancy takes commitment. Its not that stagnancy is so attractive its more that Movement is difficult — physically, emotionally and mentally. There is a constant urge to do … well … nothing <let’s call it ‘rest’>, and counter-intuitively, rest can actually steer you in the opposite direction from where you ultimately want to go. Yes. Rest, sitting still, can actually create negative progress or misguided progress.

We have to commit ourselves movement and recognize that all your movement and the decisions & actions that take place within your purposeful committed movement counts in some form or fashion.

And isn’t that what progress really about?

Making moments count?

Who gives a shit if the moment is behind where you currently are, to your side, maybe diagonally? Who cares if progress maybe even steps away from where you are?

If you make the moment count that is progress. Therefore, progress is an output from movement, any movement, not just forward.

While distributed leadership, or decentralized organizations, is crashing into the digital transformation discussion what is making me think the most is ‘freedom.’ Yes. At the core of both of these things is freedom. What do I mean? We can distribute decision-making, we can distribute data, but if when distributed people are not free to use than you either have not really distributed anything or you have not maximized your distribution (both are bad). I bring up ‘freedom’ because it is here that I find my struggle matches up with many people’s struggle: giving freedom and gaining freedom is scary. This matters because how you interpret and accept freedom is inextricably to the ultimate efficiency or effectiveness.

What really made me sit back & think about this was Niels Pflaeging/Silke Hermann’s new little handbook “OpenSpace Beta.” To me, at its core, it is about radical freedom. They may not say that nor any distributed leadership experts may not say that (they most typically discuss things thru ‘trust’), but it is all about freedom – giving & getting – and your attitude & beliefs with regard to.

I found myself debating with myself as I read the handbook.

I know “decentralized decision making within hierarchy” is an oxymoron. It is inherently impossible to decentralize in a hierarchy. You may distribute some decision making, but not decentralize & certainly not create a fully free, autonomous, organization. And, yet, I know that unfettered freedom is fraught with peril (and a significant # of people actually like a fairly well defined box in which to create & do.

I know my own behavior has had an uncomfortable relationship with giving, and gaining, freedom in self & managing others.

In my mind, effective ‘decentralization’ is most likely more like a matching service, i.e., “this autonomy matches this participant’s autonomy”rather than “freedom to do what you believe is right.”

That may sound like semantics, but it is important semantics.

Its almost like I am suggesting decentralization protocols so that people maximize the freedom they want – maybe call it “personalized distributed decisionmaking.”

By the way. This doesn’t suggest people cannot grow into their freedom, but rather most people used to a centralized hierarchy will be most successful in accepting freedom in phases. Ok. Maybe not phases, but rather stages of self learning (what am I capable of, what do I like, what am I comfortable with, what scare me, when & how I should seek some assistance). We cannot ignore that many people, even those who want this idea, will have to feel their way thru the maze of freedom.

Some people will argue analysis will help the autonomous links in relationships, but I disagree. Decentralization is hard, no metric will be able to capture this correctly. Therefore, there is a large dose of “faith” in distributing freedom.

Now. This becomes an incredibly important discussion because recent research by Gary Hamel is showing exactly the opposite in the business world:

“Bureaucracy is growing not shrinking… the average respondent (of Hamel’s study) works in an organization that has more than 6 management layers. In large organizations front line employees are buried under 8 or more layers of management.” Joost Minnaar

This means less real freedom and more management oversight (no matter what anyone may say otherwise).

To me, this is a reaction to autonomy. Huh? For every action there is a reaction. Organizations will inherently create more rules, protocols, institutional checkpoints (those can be layers) to balance out the freedom they give – freedom given, freedom corralled. It is foolish to ignore this. It is foolish to ignore the fact businesses like tidiness & freedom/autonomy feels very very untidy.

This “untidiness of autonomy” hit me as I read OpenSpace Beat because the organizational oncept espouses the idea of gaining traction where the traction raises their hands and then leverage the opt-in people to create the change. I inherently love this idea and scares the hell out of me at the same time. It is an incredibly untidy idea. Businesses inherently like tidiness and evenness & this has an untidy organizational change aspect and inherently can create some ragged edges in the organization as some adopt and some do not.

So.

I asked Niels about it:

Me: “Does OpenSpace Beta espouse the idea of gaining traction where the traction raises its hand, and then leveraging opt-in?”

Niels: The answer is YES. Even though it sounds brutally simple putting it that way! 😉 If you look at it, we certainly assume, and I am sure that EVERYONE WANTS BETA. The desire is everywhere, but it is hard for people to believe that Beta is possible in their own organizations, and that everyone wants to get engaged in the transformation. I believe the main obstacle to transformation of organizations, today, is that it is hard to believe that “all others in my organization are Y people” and that all others “want the change and can be part of the change“. In short: It is hard to believe that transformation is possible at all, that change is fast & easy – when done the right way. So, in a way, one should assume that “the traction is there”, and then create the context for the traction to take hold. How that works is not so simple – and that is why we need an inviting, opt-in approach.

Therein lies the challenge in thinking about this untidiness.

Believing that freedom is as good for you as it is for someone else.

Believing that others will use freedom as well as you do.

Believing everyone deserves freedom.

Yeah. that sounds like it could take some soul searching .. and it should. Business, for decades & thru hierarchy, has always been built around selective freedoms – maybe ‘controlled freedom.’ That’s not full autonomy, that’s controlled autonomy (which is where my head was at 8 years ago when I wrote about Controlled Autonomy ). I now rethink that thinking. Maybe it is simply my evolution of belief in freedom and people. Maybe I needed distributed leadership people to help me evolve in my thinking.

Regardless.

Stop signs.

This is where I come to stop signs. Even Freedom needs some stop signs. Roads are built so people can make their own choices where and when to go somewhere. But even in the most rural areas you will find a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. It’s not set up to curb your freedom, but rather to put a check & balance on your freedom.

I think businesses need stop signs, not layers in a hierarchy. OpenSpace Beta offers principles (which I 100% advocate), but I also believe distributed leadership & autonomy needs stop signs. I would offer some but I tend to believe each organization, each management team, each self-organized team, needs to design stop signs for their own freedom organizational map. Does this mean I am chickening out by no offering some solutions? Maybe. Maybe I am not ready to build the map & stop signs myself. Maybe I need to evolve even more before not only fully accepting OpenSpace but maybe it’s my more pragmatic belief that stop signs erected can be stop signs pulled down and that as each company erects their freedom infrastructure part of the process is, well, looking at their stop signs.

In conclusion.

I encourage everyone to at least think about distributed leadership. OpenSpace, to me, is radical distributed decision making and radical freedom. But, returning to how I opened this piece, it is most likely the most radical way to maximize digital transformation AND your organization. And in that sentence one sees the true rewards (even if scared of giving radical freedom).

Choose wisely. But always remember freedom is scary – giving it & having it – and dealing with that fear is the path to success.

Both of these pieces explored some of the societal challenges we face but, at their core, both revolve around what we view as fair – for I and We and Us.

Fair and fairness is a much more difficult topic to discuss than one would think. Maybe it is more difficult because I believe we are living through a period of simmering anger. People are angry with government, with capitalism, with media, with religion, with inequality, with immigrants, with Europe, with big business, with Russia, with how they get treated and with, well, everything seems to be changing.

In my eyes all of this is rooted in an overall question, and concern, at an individual level of “with all this change as the world transforms I am afraid change will not treat me fairly.” <this is a derivation of my post of “I get angry when people screw with my hope”>. Therefore we rage against anything we can attempting to insure the tentacles of fairness touch us at some point.

———

“The most dangerous moments are not when people are their poorest but rather when their expectations of significant improvement are raised … and end in frustration.”

de Tocqueville

—————

Interestingly, the whole discussion of fairness ITSELF creates a sense of anger.

The reason for this is that fairness sounds simple, but is complex. The most basic logic of fairness suggests choosing between which poor people, who is most in need, are more worthy of the help of the generous and “morally superior” wealthy. That is the mental logic we apply as we attempt to parse out fairness rather than have fair become mired in “equal for all.”

Yet, while even struggling working people will agree those in truest poverty, particularly children, are first in line for ‘fair’ their personal anger is not even partially quenched. They are not quenched because fairness is both an “I” thing AND a “we” thing which is not selfishness but self preservationness.

A society of fairness is one in which we are fair with each other and the system, in turn, is fair to us.

It is about attitude (and persistently holding onto that attitude).

It is, at it’s core, frankly, not glamorous.

It is the nitty gritty stuff and not the college education and wall street or even the government.

It is about marrying principle and pragmatism and gradual improvement.

It is infrastructure like streets, trains, highways and roads, public parks & community centers, easily accessible fountain water, lower level easy access good public education, stuff like that.

It is basically common sense bricks & mortar actions within a … well … the hard part … an equality based moral order frame.

Jobs is the tangible <which we need> and moral order is the intangible which creates the structure for behavior within the tangible. Jobs may be hierarchical <at the moment>, but morals should not be hierarchical.

These are not problems which can’t be fixed by simply suggesting rich white folk save the poor or “marginalized working people.” In addition it about people fighting back against injustice and working hard. It is about personal responsibility AND shared responsibility. It is about people being active positive participants in their own lives.

A ‘society of fairness’ clearly reaches into the heart, and soul, of what most of us care about, it reaches into our attitudes (because it is hard work), but almost immediately runs into the economic obstacles of ‘what is fair’.

I tend to believe all of us know that it doesn’t mean everybody has the same income. It translates more into equality of opportunity. The difficulty resides in putting dollars & cents and tactics & objectives against ‘fair & opportunity.’ No one, and I mean no one, couldn’t simplistically point out the extreme unfairness. But the true society of fairness is defined not by the extremes but rather what happens in the majority.

I share my thoughts today not to suggest we shouldn’t seek a society of fairness, but rather to point out that “fair”, in and of itself, is significantly more complex and complicated than when looking at it on a superficial level.

That said. We can do something to make the world the place we want it to be if we get our heads on straight.

What do I mean? I found a fabulous little article at a site called Common Cause Foundation on Values . But it was in the middle of the article where the author nailed the issue with regard to attaining a Society of Fairness.

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Common Cause Foundation has recently conducted research in the UK and the US looking at the values people hold, and the values they think their fellow citizens hold.

We’re still analysing this, but here are two early results. Firstly, a large majority of people hold self-transcendence values (generally concerned with the wellbeing of others) to be more important than self-enhancement values (based on the pursuit of personal status and success). But this isn’t seen by most people, who believe that their compatriots hold self-transcendence values to be less important, and self-enhancement values to be more important.

Perhaps this is a key reason why many people don’t get engaged and active, although sharing values that would otherwise lead them to – because they believe that they are in a minority, and that society at large doesn’t share their values. We call this the ‘perception gap’. It’s a gap that many in our media, and many in government, seem to work hard to perpetuate.

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In America we are certainly living out that ‘gap’ quite vocally, but as we wrestle with fairness and shared self-transcendence values I will note some reality — America has always been defined by a combination idealism and materialism. A balance of the two & it would be silly to suggest ditching one for the other. I would also note both are powerful sources of motivation.

The idealism expresses the best of human instincts in that it sanctifies the fixing America break someone else prioritizing of others over oneself and requires social and political respect. The materialism celebrates individualism.

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“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

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The combination has coexisted because one never sought to fix itself by breaking the other. The natural coexisting conflict sparks greatness, opportunity and progress.

In my words it is organizational alignment of social, materialism and political.

The difficulty with the idealism side of the equation is that people’s idealism tends to translate into, well, it doesn’t necessarily live in the real world. In our idealism, our hope to be the best of the best, we seek some things that aren’t feasible in a practical sense <and, yeah, someone is gonna throw out that practicality is just another word for “too hard”>. My response? It’s not too hard, sometimes it just isn’t feasible. That is because unfortunately ideas are reliant on two things: the power of the idea and access to an infrastructure to embrace & implement the idea. If either side fails to meet the challenge it all fails.

It is irresponsible to offer up ideas for consumption without an infrastructure in place <or a foreseeable path to a rebuilt infrastructure> to, at minimum, accept the idea and, at maximum, implement the idea.

And that is where alignment on fairness tends to fall apart.

What is maybe worse is that not only is it extremely difficult to effectively communicate what I just said but many people don’t care when they are dominated by anger. They just want solutions – they just want it done.

And if that anger is tied to a real & tangible & personal ‘unfairness’ … well … gradualism never sounds compelling and, frankly, isn’t compelling. Revolution appears much more attractive.

Here is a realistic truth. In 1990 Peter Drucker discussed Salvation by Society < his version of society of fairness> – http://brucemctague.com/salvation-by-society – and how a transforming business world was killing it. We now see in 2016/18 the full repercussions of that transformation. Fairness may begin today … but its positive transformation will take decades to become re-embedded in our business, and societal, structure and institutions.

Anyway.

I love the idea of a society of fairness. Unfortunately, in today’s world, fair means different things to different people. And demonizing any group of people, even despite their inordinate wealth, doesn’t really seem fair. Good people reside at every wealth level. Good people reside in every skin color. Good people reside, well, let’s just say that 98.5% of the time 98.5% of the people are good <I made up the 98.5% and thought it looked smarter than simply putting 99%>. And the 1.5% bad are not solely in the purview of the mega wealthy.

And therein lies the hope for a Society of fairness. Good resides in the significant majority. It simply lies dormant and needs to be reawakened.

With that I return to Otto Sharmer. What I like about his thoughts aren’t all the specific thoughts (which I could haggle with aspects), but rather the holistic integrated view of creating a society of fairness. It is complex, & I am not sure we are aligned with what ‘fair’ really is, but if we can envision what the totality could look like, well, it can be built.

“The talk you hear about adapting to change is not only stupid, it’s dangerous.

The only way you can manage change is to create it.”

—–

Peter Drucker

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“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”

———–John Green

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Ok. This is about Possibilities and infiniteness. A long time ago I wrote ‘multiple sized infinities’ where I attempt to debunk the “your possibilities are infinite” snake oil life coaching advice. But here I focus on the finiteness of infinite in business.

I will do so in 2 ways:

decision making mode. I’m not sure how helpful it is to encourage people who need to make A decision that the possibilities are limitless.

maximizing individual’s productivity. I’m not sure how helpful it is to encouraging a person who has a job to do, and desires to do it as well as they can, that their possibilities are infinite.

Decision making.

Oddly I will begin speaking about possibilities by talking about shaking the etch a sketch. I do that because any discussion about possibilities begins, and ends, with: “whatever got you to where you are today is not enough to keep you there.” This is where the etch a sketch comes in because that quote is right AND wrong.

Rightin that you have to ditch maybe 80% of the thinking & ideas because they were building ideas and now you have to leverage velocity off of what you have. You need to shake the etch a sketch & redraw systems, process & ideas.

Wrong in that most likely your business is constructed around 4 cornerstones of principles. Or maybe it has some strong cultural boundaries.Both of those represent the good stuff that makes your business WHO it is not what it does. That’s the etch a sketch itself. The construct which holds what gets shaken. Without it the sand flies all over the place and you have … well … shit & you need to start all over (that’s bad).

This makes possibilities finite simply by the valuable boundaries of what makes a business a business. And before someone tosses out “outside the box” bullshit, these boundaries can be pushed out but stepping across means breaking principles which make your company. in other words. If this business finiteness doesn’t meet your needs don’t step out of the box, go to another company.

Individual productivity.

Let me talk comfort zones here. far too often infinite possibilities encourages people to look for shit outside their comfort zone or outside some box. As I pointed out in my comfort zone piece, that’s wrong. Individual productivity, individual meaning & individual purpose is generated by pushing OUT the boundaries of what you are currently capable of. This distinction is important because meaning shouldn’t be a onetime thing it should simply be an extension of who you are and what you do. Keep it within your zone just push the boundaries out.

Anyway. Infinite gives Possibilities a bad rap. What do I mean? Far <far> too often we talk about possibilities as “the possibilities are infinite.” We make them sound like they all reside somewhere ‘outside the box.’ From an organizational leadership standpoint this sounds quite inefficient. But the truth about possibilities are infinite is that it is bullshit. In fact. In all this bullshit we are screwing what is actually a good concept, or the possibilities truth. The future is NOT filled by infinite possibilities. Now. We may have more possibilities than we think we do, but they are certainly not infinite.

In fact the possibilities in any given time and situation are quite finite in a variety of ways:

Time inevitably squeezes your possibilities quite often into an almost suffocating finite space.

Context, or the situation itself, squeezes your possibilities quite often into a less than infinite, or maybe better said “a variety of different sized infinities,” choice space.

We do possibilities a huge disservice by suggesting ‘infinite.’ Shit. We do ourselves a huge disservice by suggesting ‘infinite possibilities.’ At any given time you, and the organization, are absolutely surrounded by possibilities. But possibilities do not always lie directly ahead of you or in the direction you face. Possibilities swirl around you in a multi-dimensional fashion.

Therefore, possibilities can reside in any direction.

Therefore, in order to see all possibilities you may not be able to rely solely on peripheral vision, but to turn around and view in a 360degree fashion <and, yes, if you turn around I would note you are then looking forward just in a different direction>.

Therefore, progress can reside in any direction.

But this is not infinite. It just may feel like it is infinite simply because of the complexity associated with context and what your mind can realistically grasp. We would do better if we admitted infinities, in terms of possibility, reside in all directions – not just forward. We would be much better served if we admitted that not all infinities are same sized. I also believe we would be much better served to admit that possibilities are finite to any given individual. Possibilities which be much better served if we suggested the depth & breadth available within the finite space available to us.

The power of purposeful possibilities. Purposeful possibilities means you aren’t chasing possibilities, but rather seeking meaning. Meaning at work is relatively simple. Every job shouldn’t be a valuable job, it should be a valued job. Valued by the one doing it & by others around. If you find you are valued for what you do, you will inherently begin seeking to be better because we know we are contributing. That’s meaning.

Finding the “better” within what is, i.e., a better inside for a better outside.

The better inside is obvious. This is purposeful adaptation and a constant fine tuning of how things are done and products & services offered. But we cannot, and should not, forget that all of the ‘better inside’ feeds a ‘better desire’ outside.

Pragmatically, people desire something better than a good numbers report. Sure. That is the day-to-day ‘meet the needs state’ type stuff going on in their heads, but at some point they lean back in their chairs, either in the office or in the comfort of their home, and they desire … maybe even need … to see something better to validate themselves as human beings beyond simply ‘doing their job well.’ They want to feel they have done something better, offered something better or contributed something better. In my words, they’d like to be in touch with their “muchness.” I say that because it is clearly different than infinite, or the pursuit of, possibilities. It is simply expansion of who & what you are to its greatest size & ability.

In the end. Infinite possibilities are not infinite, they are finite. And I truly believe we would all be better off as we pursue creating a better business world, one in which purpose is embraced and people can find some meaning & value in what they do if we didn’t overwhelm people with infinite and tell everyone “finite is big enough for all the good things we want to happen to happen.”